


make room

by Hymn



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Bolin-centric, F/M, I need sleep, This is Not My Homework, This is trash, heavy on the flowers, no really, porn with the next chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-02
Updated: 2012-07-02
Packaged: 2017-11-09 00:51:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hymn/pseuds/Hymn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bolin has time to think, and to dream, and to desire. It just so happens that the timing may even be right, this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	make room

Above the setting sun the stars unwind, their light unfolding, streaking languidly into the deepening blue, and reflecting in the warbling, trembling waves that stretch the distance between Air Temple Island and Republic City. Aang, stoic in the distance, shifted gradually in shades of cooling peach and gold and lavender turning into violet. It was breathtaking, that kind of sunset, and Bolin leaned against a railing, one of those heavy, handsome pieces of artistry found all over the Island, subtle with curving lines and concentric circles carved deep into the red-painted wood, and sighed. Below the bridge, which arched over one of many man-made ponds, fish darted in a glitter of scales, golds and pale yellows, with sharp bursts of copper and rust making patterns in the murky, mysterious green depths as twilight fell. 

He thought: Air Benders may be monks, and they may meditate, and they may try and, I don't know, rip past the mundane bustle of reality, and stuff, and spurn certain things, like pro-bending and meat - delicious meat! - but they don't disregard beauty. Maybe that's the point? It's like that time Korra showed me that Air Bending excercise, the one with all the whirling panels, and she had to be so calm and empty but it was so pretty. I bet Air Benders would make the best dancers.

In the distance Republic City lit up, slow at first, pulling him from his contemplation with just a few, staggered lights. They looked almost lonesome like that, and then more and more caught, flared, blared up against the encroaching darkness. Bolin smiled, his heart rattling in his ribcage at the sight. Maybe it was silly, but every day, every evening, he turned towards the skyline, the cityscape that had birthed him, and waited for the lights to come on. As if, with just that gesture, he knew that everything would be all right.

The defeat of Amon, such as it was, and the recovery of Republic City; the return of Korra's Avatar power, and her new and unshakeable knowledge on how to return bending to the hundreds of city-folk that Amon had ravaged before his scheme unraveled; it was all in the past, but the recent past. Close enough that Bolin hesitated to turn his head, to glance at the shadows behind him in case they jumped back, came alive again, that moment where he thought, pinned to his knees and with Amon's glove-encased hand descending, that the world, as he knew it, was gone... 

Bolin shivered, despite the taste of spring which warmed the air. 

*

Pema recovered from the ordeal of giving birth and being hunted by banding the entirety of their oddly collected family together, those both blood-related and bound by shared experience. There was no excuse in missing dinner, which was a lengthy, exhaustive affair of too much food and sweet wines and cool juices, the soft hymn of chimes in the wind and the chatter of Meelo and Ikki and the faint cries of their new born baby making a soft harmony that the adults, or the almost-adults, found comfort in. It made the silences warm, instead of jaded.

Now that it was over, now that Korra was safe, now that Mako no longer needed to be a hero, the infatuation between them snagged, caught between Asami's bitterness and the memory of Bolin's heartbreak. He tried not to be obvious; it had been easiest to let Mako, fire-tempered as he was, be the loudest, the fastest, the one to cling to Korra's side with declarations of devotion. They didn't need to know that, when they had her back, when Korra was safe, when she could smile again, Bolin had locked himself inside a storage closet and sobbed his eyes out into Pabu's fur, until it was matted with snot and tears and the Fire Ferret made gentle chirrups of worry. 

As long as she still stayed with them, while the turbulence of Amon boiled over into a semblance of normality, Asami was there - Pema would have it no other way - and Bolin usually spent a long time not looking at the awkward lines of Korra and Mako shifting side by side. Maybe that was why he needed Jinora to point out the subtly obvious. Dinner was the only time all four of them were together, and that night was no different as Bolin trudged up the stairs, leaving behind the descending twilight for the golden-lit warmth inside. Pema, baby Rohan on her hip, hustled about, seeing to this plate and that dish, and had Meeko washed his hands yet? Jinora appeared beside Bolin, leaning against him sweetly with her hands clasped in front of her. 

"Good evening, Bolin."

"Hey there, Jinora," he grinned, ruffling her bob of hair. "How are things?"

Jinora hummed, rocking back on her heels. "Asami slapped Mako today behind one of the storage sheds."

"Uh," Bolin said, eyebrows arching in his face with surprise. The noise of everyone else in the room was such that Bolin wasn't worried about anyone hearing Jinora's gossip, or Bolin's response. It was simply that Bolin didn't know, exactly, what to think of that. Normally Mako stood as a silent, fierce sentinel at Korra's side as she, one by one, gave Bending back to their world. He usually avoided Asami, and Asami usually avoided him.

Jinora smiled, just a little, and said, "Korra told him to go talk to her. Well," the young girl amended, "she said it differently, but I'd rather not risk mother's Mom Ears, so I paraphrased a bit."

"Huh," Bolin said. His eyebrows were still at his hair line. Jinora sparkled sedately at him, and then went to help her mother pass out the dumplings. Following behind, Bolin looked towards Asami, who was fuming, and Mako, who was sulking, and then his eyes settled on Korra, who was meditatively flipping one of her chopsticks at a terrifying speed between her fingers. Her shoulders, Bolin noticed, seemed relaxed, despite the heavy circles under her glittering eyes.

"Rough day?" he teased, as playfully as he knew how, and settled in place along the adjacent length of the table from Korra. Not quite across from her, not quite beside her. A safe distance. She looked up from her chopstick spinning, and grinned, that long, lazy stretch of teeth and wicked mirth, that had first made Bolin's breath catch and stumble. 

"It was daisies and sunshine," she snorted. "Almost a vacation, you know, the ones with free drinks and umbrellas and a lot of sand."

Bolin chuckled, watching as Asami stabbed her dumplings with the glistening tines of her fork. No chopsticks in the higher echelons of society, these days, and Asami, bless her arrogance, had never bothered to learn once she was regulated to spending her time with more common folk. He said, "Korra you sound like you have no idea what you just said."

She smothered a laugh with a bite. 

Then it was time to get serious with eating, because despite the vegetarian aspect it was good, really good, and Bolin hadn't been through enough in his life to lose his appetite. Tenzin talked about work, which Korra responded to in rough grunts, until Pema complained, which made Rohan complain, and then Ikki distracted everybody with a whirlwind of random facts that had Mako and Asami protesting incredulously the truth of. Bolin peeked glances at Korra, who watched the two with a small, sad smile, and a strange sense of relief in her eyes.

Not the kind of relief you get when you're glad of something, Bolin thought, suddenly and with surprised wonder, but the kind of relief you have when you accept the inevitable. 

And in that moment Bolin thought: she is so so so gorgeous; and he stabbed one of her dumplings with the business end of his chopstick, to turn those blue eyes on him, to bring a flush to her dark cheeks, and laughter and indignance to a mouth that had been too quiet. 

*

He was leaning against the railing again, this time in mid-day sun that was finally warming up enough to shed the heavy over coat that had kept him through winter. He stretched, reveling in the scent of spring, the promise of flowers. His palms itched to bend; but not just to rough house in the training rooms, flipping discs of earth and cascades of gravel. He wanted to dig his toes into the soft dirt, and tickle the roots with his fingertips until the green things laughed and shivered and bloomed for him.

Bolin thought: I want to give her flowers. Lots of flowers. I bet she'd look real sweet with a peach blossom behind her ear.

Then he figured, Why the hell not? She totally deserves it. and wandered off his bridge, to the small garden that lay half in snow and half in sun on the other side. Not many people walked through here. It was towards the back of the compound, where nothing important was to be found; no libraries, or guest quarters filled with visiting dignitaries, like General Iroh and his band of aides, or meditation rooms where the Air Benders drifted through like hazy dreams. It was just quiet, and dark rooms, and gentle loneliness.

There was a patch of dirt shining golden in the sun, where the snow had grudgingly melted. Bolin took off his boots, and rolled up his sleeves, and plopped himself down on the spot where spring would come first, in a month, maybe two, if the winter stubbornly lingered. He hoped spring would come fast, though; it felt as though the winter had lingered long enough, the dark and cold, and that everyone would breath a sigh of relief, of thanks, when the season turned.

Then Bolin closed his eyes, and breathed out down and slow, pushing his being out into the ground, the earth, the world, which shivered and waited, nearly sentient because of Bolin's awareness of it. What it meant to be a Bender, to know an element the same way you'd know that this was your limb, and you could move it, turn it, use it. And then Bolin dug his fingers in, scratching at the dirt beneath his finger nails, and wriggled. 

*

Twilight found him again on the bridge, smelling of dirt and sun and sweat, with the faintest, sweetest scent of blossoms. He felt content, stretched full and steady in his own skin, for the first time in a very, very long time. He thought: maybe I'll become a gardener. Oh, wait! Maybe I'll own a flower shop! I can sell flowers to all my lovely fangirls, and maybe give the sweetest ones a freebie every now and then. I'll get Pema to sew me an apron. Something cute.

Bolin hadn't thought much about his future. Before, when it was just him and Mako against the world, there hadn't been much to think about past the immediacy of now. Win the tournament, win the money, have food and a place to stay. Repeat. And now that they'd been taken in by the Avatar, by Councilman Tenzin, by the loving heart of Pema and her children, they didn't have to struggle from day to day. They could dream, they could reach.

I could be a policeman, Bolin thought with wonder. I could- I could learn Metal Bending! Then he thought of Lin BeiFong and hunched down a little, because Lin was beautiful and competant and awesome in a terrifying way, and she would eat him up for breakfast and crap him out, and maybe he would not become a policeman. But the flower shop idea wasn't a bad one, he thought. Asami would take over her father's company, he knew that for certain, and she would be good at it. Mako, well. He didn't know what his brother would do, but it wasn't like how it had been. They didn't have to stick together to survive.

Now they could stick together just because they wanted to, and, he thought to himself gently, it was okay if sometimes they didn't want to.

Korra would be Korra. She would be Avatar, no matter what she did, or where, or with whom. 

Bolin stood before the sinking sun, before the lengthening night, and the stars and the lights coming out across the water, and smiled. 

*

It was almost time for dinner when Korra found him, still standing at his railing. She came up quietly, soft, dusky skin warm with the reds and corals of sunset, her eyes shining like stars, her hair curling sweetly across her forehead. She walked confidently, and Bolin admired the stretch of her shoulders, the sharp slice of her collar bone, and the steady sway of her hips.

"Bo," she said, coming up beside him.

Bolin stared at her, and thought: Notice me.

"The flowers," she muttered, pursing her mouth and arching an eyebrow at him. Her hands settled on the railing, long fingers curling over the banister. Bolin admired her hands, which could do anything.

Bolin smiled.

"You're the only one who could have. Would have." She paused, and leaned forward, huffing a gust of a sigh. Then, "What are you doing here?"

"Watching the lights," he said simply. He was still caught up, tangled in his thoughts, quiet and slow to speak, because the words were all bright stars piling up in his mind, behind his tongue, pressing against his ribcage. He laughed, a stuttering, awkward, bird-song of a laugh, and said, "Did you know, I could become a florist! How awesome would that be, eh? Pretty awesome, I tell you. Pre-tty awesome."

Korra blinked, laughed, flexed her beautiful, callused fingers. "I think," she murmured, in her honey-dark, twilight voice, "that would suit you, Bo."

He grinned at her, and at the fading sun, and at the blossoming lights of the city, and at the lingering perfume of flowers that clung to his hands and her hair. Her eyes caught on his forearms, bared beneath the rolled sleeves of his shirt. She frowned. "Thank you for the flowers, Bolin. I- Yeah. Thanks."

Notice me, he thought. Please, keep noticing me. Look at me. I haven't given up, I never gave up. I just wasn't very good at dreaming what could be past the moment.

He said, "You're welcome, Korra. Now let's go before Pema comes out and starts fussing. I'm hungry!"

Korra followed him, slow and thoughtful, and Bolin traced the shadows beneath her eyes between bites of his salad in hushed, fleeting glances.

*

He abandoned his post to seek her out. Twilight was coming down, hushed and storm-ladden, and Bolin had seen the long, straight form of his brother, scarf trailing crimson, striding through the gold paneled corridors earlier. Toward Asami. Away from Korra. He didn't want it to be awkward, but nonetheless Bolin wanted, couldn't help but want, and Bolin had never been one for self-control. Besides, Bolin had sought out Korra first, he thought, sullen and mullish in his sudden determination.

Then he saw her, standing atop the steps in the blue garb of her people, dark skin and darker hair against the pale walls of the temple behind her, back straight, shoulders stiff, smiling down at a young girl who cried after the Avatar's fingers lifted from her forehead. Bolin came closer, and saw the strain in Korra's blue eyes. Bounding up the steps, Bolin grinned at Korra, grinned at the little girl, tweaking her cheek and ruffling her hair, and shooing her off the steps into the arms of her father, and then Bolin stretched his arms wide and pointed at the sun, which was nearly gone, and the lights across the water, which were ablaze, and said,

"Korra's done for the day. Go on, go on, she's not going anywhere, she'll be back tomor- No, she'll be back the day after tomorrow! The Avatar is taking a break, communing with her, uh, Avatar-ness, and for those of you who still need to be touched by the Awesome Hand of Bending you're just going to have to wait a little longer because Korra is off tomorrow."

"Bo," Korra whisper-shouted, "I'm the Avatar, the Avatar can't take a vacation!"

"Sure you can," Bolin fake-whispered back, "One of those vacations with free drinks and umbrellas and itty bitty bikinis." He grinned at her indignant blush, and turned back to the crowd, which wasn't exactly pleased, but which went willingly enough, perhaps understanding despite their desperation. He put his hands on his hips, letting his broad back, and wide shoulders, and stocky build block Korra, hide her, hold her apart from the throngs of the needy. He stood there feeling triumphant and pleased with himself, because Mako had never thought of this stunt, no siree. Then Korra sighed behind him, and Bolin felt a gentle plop of pressure between his shoulder blades that he was almost certain was Korra's forehead.

After a moment, where everyone had gone and it was just the two of them and the night-scented wind, Bolin standing still because he never wanted the moment to end, Korra muttered, "Thanks."

Bolin smiled, very small and sweet, eyelashes fluttering over the green of his eyes, and said, "You're welcome, Korra."

*

"I'm taking you here because no one is ever here but me," Bolin announced, dragging a protesting Korra out, through halls and around corners and over bridges and through rooms, until the bustle and hustle of people eased, and the wind and the birds and the sunshine and melting snow was the only thing left.

"This is where I found you the other day," Korra said. "The guards told me you're always around here, especially during evening."

Bolin hummed in agreement, trying not to lose focus at the feeling of Korra's hand in his, because it wasn't as though it meant anything more than Bolin bullying Korra. Or, well, Korra allowing Bolin to bully her. "It's a great spot. Really pretty, with a great view. You'll love it."

"But Naga-"

"Naga," Bolin said airily, "has three small children hanging on her every whim. Who does the Avatar have?"

After a pause, Korra pressed her hand to Bolin's, and sped her pace. "You, I guess."

*

They spent the day in the sunshine on the bridge, Bolin pillowing his head on his arms, and Korra laying out against his side, using his stomach for a pillow - "A little firm to be a pillow," Korra protested, with the faintest hint of red along her cheeks, and her gaze a little too interested; Bolin held his breath on a startled hope, his heart beating too fast - her legs kicked over the side of the bridge. Every now and then she'd lift her hands, twist her wrists or curl her fingers, and make the water dance for him.

*

The day that followed was back to business, but this time Bolin was there at the end of the day to cluck and fuss and shoo the lingerers away. Within a week Korra was done, exhausted and horrified at how long it had taken, proof of how fast and viciously Amon had set about on his task to eradicate all other bending but his. Bolin was in the habit of leaving her flowers, and two weeks into spring when the world was coming alive with green, Korra began to absentmindedly weave a blossom or two into her hair. They spent her days off on the bridge, in the sun, chatting idly, or watching the fish or clouds or the back of their eyelids in silence.

Occasionally Bolin went with her to meetings, standing just a little behind her like a body guard, which always made him shake inside with laughter, because trying to be still and serious for that long, seeing the wary or admiring looks people gave him, was hysterical. Korra shared in the amusement, with humor-darkened eyes, curling mouth, or an amused press of her knee against his.

They had dinner together, all of them, and then one day Korra snagged his wrist and held him there at the bridge with her fingertips against the pulse point of his wrist untl the sun was down, and the sky was full of stars, and twilight had deepened to night. "What about Pema?" he finally asked, once the moon peered out between silver-lined clouds.

Korra shook her head, and said, "Don't worry about it." Then she took him to a room behind their garden, where the moon shone down in a shimmering puddle on the lake, and the bridge, and the city was a wavering gleam of blurred lights from far away, nearly lost to the distance, and Bolin was too busy staring at the shape of Korra's ear, and jaw, and throat to notice, anyway.

"We'll have dinner here, instead," she said, awkward and stilted, but smiling that daring, wicked grin, as she slashed her arm at a sharp angle, and fire lit a candle, then two, then four, then twenty more. In the room she'd led him in, where the screens had been pushed back so that it was open to the garden air, there was a table set with dinner, for just the two of them.

"Oh," Bolin said. 

"Yeah," Korra said, rough because she was nervous.

Bolin felt the smile fly out of him, felt the light and the stars and the morning and quiet joy of green and growing things just leap up in his throat, through his heart, and unfold in the smile that he gave Korra, just for her, only for her. All the best, the most beautiful, the most beloved things, on display for her because she made them awaken, and grow, and Bolin could not keep them still inside himself.

Then he laughed, and poked her in the side so that she swatted at him, and he giggled some more and danced around her on light, bouncing steps, like the kind he'd taught her during their first lesson pro-bending, and said, "Are you asking me on a daaaa-aaate, Korra?"

She grabbed him in a headlock, and whispered sly and hot in his ear, "Are you accepting?"

"Yes," he breathed.

**Author's Note:**

> I swear there will be a second part with porn but I just wasted all my homework time on this and now I have three hours before I have to wake up for work so THIS IS ALL YOU GET RIGHT NOW sob if you even want more SOB.


End file.
